The Source of Disturbance Matters: External, Internal, and Control-Generated Noise in Adaptive Regulation

Veronique Ziegler

Adaptive regulation can itself perturb the state it is intended to stabilize. In replicated simulations of an adaptive agent, we compare external disturbance, persistent internally generated disturbance, and control-generated disturbance under regulation-first and disturbance-first ordering. Persistent internal disturbance produces the largest exposure and regulatory burden within the tested parameter grid. When positive controller updates generate an immediate disturbance cost, increasing that cost produces a nonmonotonic response: effective disturbance initially rises, variability across stochastic runs increases over an intermediate range, and corrective activity becomes strongly suppressed at higher costs. The results show how disturbance source and timing shape exposure and controller burden in this model. They motivate testing adaptive agents with distinct disturbance sources and assessing regulatory activity alongside exposure.